A Lake Havasu city council member walked out during an executive board meeting where the city council evaluates the top three city employees. However, details about the case are unknown, at least for now, due to confidentiality obligations under state law surrounding discussions held during executive meetings.
A board meeting was held to conduct an employee evaluation of City Manager Jess Knudson, City Attorney Kelly Garry, and City Judge Mitchell Karauri. These are the top three city officials in Havasu. They are the only three of his staff employed by Congress to answer directly to Congress.
When asked by the Today News Herald, city councilor Michelle Lynn admitted she left Tuesday’s meeting near the end of negotiations.
“All I can say is that I didn’t agree with this year’s evaluation process compared to how it was done in the past,” Lin said. “That was part of the reason, but I can’t speak to the other part.”
City Councilman Nancy Campbell said she supported Lynn’s early retirement decision. Councilors Jim Dolan, David Lane, Cameron Moses, Jenni Koch and Mayor Cal Sheehy declined to comment when asked specifically about Lynn’s departure. rice field.
“I am reluctant to talk about it because the repercussions of talking about what happened at the executive meeting are pretty serious,” Sheehy said. “If that happens, it happened during the course of the meeting, so I don’t want to get involved in it.”
Conversations made at executive meetings are confidential, but actions resulting from those discussions must be taken at public hearings. The council held a public hearing on staff evaluations at its regular session after Tuesday’s executive board meeting. At that hearing, the council voted 5-1-1 to give Mr. Knudson, Mr. Gary and Mr. Karauli a “favorable” rating, and asked the staff to “draft employment contracts as discussed at the Executive Board meeting.” decided to give instructions.
Mr. Lynn was the only city council member to vote against the motion, and Mr. Campbell abstained from voting.
Campbell said he decided to abstain from voting because he did not agree with the motions submitted. Campbell said he would prefer a motion that considers each employee individually rather than lumping them all together in the same motion.
Another executive meeting is scheduled for Thursday to finalize the assessment. Sheehy said conversations would pick up where they left off on Tuesday, when lawmakers had to end an executive meeting to return to the floor for regular meetings scheduled for the same evening.
“This is just a continuation because we’re literally running out of time,” Sheehy said. “We need more time to finalize contract negotiations. This year, we will not only be evaluating the three appointed positions, but also renegotiating the contracts for those positions. So, we ran out of time on Tuesday. I just continue from where I had to stop.”
Thursday’s executive meeting will also be closed to the public as the council discusses personnel issues, which will be heard at the next meeting scheduled for June 13. The contract will be open for public review, giving City Council members more freedom to speak on the subject.
Lin, who is in his ninth year on the council, said the process the council used to evaluate employees this year was not the same as in the past. She said it wasn’t the main reason she left the meeting, but she admitted it was a factor.
“There’s always been a process, but this year, I just believe, the process wasn’t aligned with how we’ve done it in the past,” Lin said.
But city councilors Dolan and Moses both said the specific processes used to evaluate city officials are never quite the same.
“It’s a little different each year as the deputy mayor coordinates, but ultimately it’s a review of the three officials who have the authority of the city council,” Dolan said.
Dolan and Moses also said they were happy with the process adopted this year.
“The process is not very important to me,” said Ms. Moses. “I evaluate and interview three employees each week, and I have discussions with stakeholders and employees every week. So the evaluation can be done today, tomorrow, or in six months So whatever the process is, if the deputy mayor gives us a presentation, that’s fine.
Sheehy said, from his perspective, the same general process is used to conduct the assessment each year, and that was the case this year as well. But Sheehy acknowledged that some of the details may change from year to year. Sheehy said the process begins with the mayor appointing a deputy mayor to lead the evaluation, who will present to other legislators at the board meeting and share what they learn.
“The process is pretty much the same all the time. The deputy mayor collects and shares the information. But it’s pretty much the same,” Sheehy said. “Each deputy mayor has a different interpretation of how to do it. Some meet directly with stakeholders, others work with team members to gather information throughout the year. It may be, but I don’t feel it’s much different than the process we’ve used in the past.”
Deputy Mayor Lane declined to say how the process worked over the past few years, citing confidentiality regarding executive meetings, but shared the process he personally went through to conduct the review. said it can.
“I see them all year round,” Lane said. “So my evaluation is not just on this particular day, but I am evaluating them throughout the year for the entire duration of the contract. Over the course of the year, I attend various events with them, watching and critiquing them throughout the year.”
Lane says he’s always used the same process since becoming a city councilor, including past years as deputy mayor, and he’s always done it that way, going back to his days as a supervisor of the California Highway Patrol. He said he has been evaluating employees.
